Board Composition and Director Recruiting Trends 2020

Board Composition and Director Recruiting Trends, an Equilar publication, analyzes the composition of boards across the Equilar 500—the 500 largest, by reported revenue, U.S.-headquartered companies trading on one of the major U.S. stock exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq or NYSE American). The report identifies trends related to diversity, board size, organizational structure and more. The report also highlights the youngest Equilar 500 boards, as well as those with the highest percentage of female directors.  Georgeson and KPMG’s Board Leadership Center provided additional independent commentary to provide insight on the landscape of board composition and how trends may affect the requirements and makeup of boards.

About the Report

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Key Findings

• Among Equilar 500 companies, the most common board size was 11 directors in 2019, while Russell 3000 boards most frequently consisted of fewer than eight members
• In 2019, 25.9% of all Equilar 500 directorships were held by women
• The prevalence for both CEO-chairs and non-executive chairs within the Equilar 500 were identical at 43.5% in 2019
• The difference between average and median director tenure across the Equilar 500 increased from 1.7 years to 2.3 years between 2015 and 2019